UPDATED: Foreign capital seems to love Hecker Pass Highway.
A couple weeks after Asian investors offered $35 million for
Gilroy Gardens, Joel Goldsmith has sold his family’s flower seed
business, Goldsmith Seeds, to Swiss agribusiness conglomerate
Syngenta AG for $74 million.
Foreign capital seems to love Hecker Pass Highway.
A couple weeks after Asian investors offered $35 million for Gilroy Gardens, Joel Goldsmith has sold his family’s flower seed business, Goldsmith Seeds, to Swiss agribusiness conglomerate Syngenta AG for $74 million.
“We have been an attractive target for a while because we’re independent and because of the type of business we do,” Goldsmith said. “This was a willing buyer, and for us as a company and as a family, we were doing very well, but with our size and all the consolidating going on in our industry, we were concerned about being able to get through unexpected downturns,” Goldsmith said.
The local business and its 160 or so employees will stay in town, and Syngenta plans to hold onto to the Goldsmith name. His 46-year-old company also has facilities in Guatemala, where about 1,340 employees work. In general, Goldsmith said, no apparent changes will take place at colorful property in west Gilroy, where a rainbow of radiant flowers shines through the historic Deodar Cedar trees along the road.
“We will continue to operate under the Goldsmith name and continue to do what we do. We will be integrated with some of Syngenta’s activities, but our headquarters will remain on Hecker Pass,” Goldsmith said. He will travel to Basel, Switzerland, in the next couple of weeks to meet with executives of the company that had sales in the “neighborhood of $10 billion” last year, Goldsmith said. He added that Syngenta has operations all over the world, mostly corn and soy bean, but also lawn and garden ventures, the division which Goldsmith said he will report to.
As far as the employees here – who own about 20 percent of the company through a stock ownership plan but did not vote on the sale – Goldsmith described their initial reactions to the news as muted, but it’s a prudent move in the long run, he said.
“Their initial reaction was some obvious sadness because we’re very much like a family out here, and I think they’ve enjoyed the idea we’re a family business, and that’s certainly going to change,” Goldsmith said. “It’s not something they were thrilled about even though they understand it’s probably good in the long run.”
U.S.-traded shares of Syngenta fell 87 cents, or 2.77 percent, to $30.56. In extended trading, they rose 47 cents, or 1.53 percent, to $30.56.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
